Protesters oppose Senate Bill 590 Monday afternoon

Many who marched through downtown Bloomington on a dreary, wet Monday said Indiana Senate Bill 590 is racist and marginalizes the country’s poorest.

The bill, in part, would require Indiana police to check a person’s immigration status if they suspect the person is in the U.S. illegally.

“The bill isn’t going to stop illegal immigration,” Bloomington resident Bryce Martin said. “It’ll just further marginalize the poor.”

So Martin and at least 100 others marched to try to get their point across.

The rally, a term marchers made a point of using instead of “protest,” wasn’t organized by any one group, said Rachel Dotson, an IU graduate student who helped coordinate the march.

She said it was a “decentralized community thing,” meaning people from all walks of life — IU students and staff and community members — came together, and for different reasons.

The march started at IU’s Sample Gates. As ralliers got organized and brought out signs and banners, cars passing by honked their approval.

“It’s not fair,” said one IU freshman marcher, Karaline Cartagena. She said the bill would essentially target people because of their skin color. She said the march was a way for people to come out and voice their opinion.

The group moved down Kirkwood Avenue.

They shouted, “Stop SB 590,” among other things. They turned on Walnut Street and marched around the courthouse. Before the rally, someone had written things like “SB 590, set it on fire” and “Kill SB 590” on signs along their path.

While marching down Walnut Street, cars started honking again, but this time they weren’t for support; they were from angry drivers. Police also started following the protesters.

The marchers, after their second loop around downtown, stopped at the courthouse.
Tim Gonzalez of Bloomington, a marcher, stood on the sidewalk while the marchers stopped at Walnut and Kirkwood just before finishing the march.

He said he had more sense than to stand in the road at that point, with the marchers blocking traffic and the police surrounding them.

But, he said, it’s hard to get people’s attention, and the march had some benefit. Whether or not the people who saw the marchers agreed with them, it engaged them on some level, he said.

“The effect of the march goes beyond however long it went on,” he said.

Originally, Dotson planned for the group to meet with IU President Michael McRobbie’s office to get his support. Dotson learned he wasn’t in town Monday, so she said she’d reschedule that.

Dotson said McRobbie was supportive of the Dream Act.

The act would have provided a way for some illegal immigrants to become legal if they earned a high school diploma or something equivalent.

“We have every reason to believe he’ll stand with us,” she said.